Sunday, October 31, 2010

After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Hearst Television implemented programs for disaster relief. This was a relevant cause for Hearst TV because it had a station in the area, and many of its employees and consumers were affected by the hurricane. Hearst and its New Orleans station, WDSU-TV created a regional network to report news to viewers who were affected, which was never done before. They further established commitment to the cause by starting a relief fund.

Friday, October 29, 2010

In Johnson and Johnson’s 2008 Sustainability Report they write that their “promise to health care” is an important issue that they are focusing on. The report takes about a full page to explain why they consider this topic important. However, it seems to me already that the issue is extremely broad. When I read on to the 9th page they then say “It includes supporting health care reforms that put the individual at the center; helping others develop effective prevention programs based on our own experience in employee health; and developing educational programs that help build capacity and enable health care practitioners and government health and hospital administrators to upgrade their skills” and I immediately realize I am correct. Johnson and Johnson Corporation is trying to tackle too many issues instead of focusing on one like Starbucks. Then the sustainability report goes on to explain how they package their product because environment is another issue they are trying to tackle. The issue on environment is a combination of water challenges and waste management. Johnson and Johnson is focusing on a combination of social and environmental issues. Normally, companies try to focus on one aspect because their vision, tactics and performance can be in-depth and guarantee higher success rate. Although Johnson and Johnson goes in depth on each of their issues their tactics to meet objectives are weak. However, in their performance indicator they seem to have made good improvements for each for their categories. I would have liked to see Johnson and Johnson chose either environment or social issue and then really become apart of that issue. I think instead they dabbled in a lot of things and used their name for recognition for the smaller non-profit companies that put in all the work.

This innovative program will collaboratively develop solutions to the challenge of preserving clean water for future generations

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

This is difficult topic, considering how many demographics Hearst has between their digital, magazine, newspaper and television components. But, if we narrow down the spectrum, Hearst definitely tries to grab certain diverse groups with their content. MisQuinceMag.com, a sister site and magazine to Seventeen, definitely attempts to target the Spanish demographic. Seventeen magazine & the dot com version provide tips for what to wear to your prom, or Sweet 16. MisQuinceMag celebrates the Spanish celebration for when a girl turns 15. Although some feel it is unneeded because the dresses sometimes look eerily similar to the ones that currently exist in Seventeen, it was created to specifically target the young Spanish demographic that Seventeen might not attract on its own.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Wegmans created an employee blog on their website this past July. The blog is called "Fresh Stoies" and is authored by employees across their many departments. Employees blog about a variety of topics, including upcoming events, new recipes, nutritional advice, going green efforts, and seasonal updates. Readers are able to post comments and questions to all of the blog posts, and after looking through several comments, it appeared as though the employees are very timely as far as responding to questions. The page also has links to the Wegmans Twitter and Facebook accounts. I also found a site called "Wegmans Wire," which is another Wegmans blog that posts company updates and product recalls. However, it did not seem like the site had been updated in a while (I think the last post was from May). It did have a live Twitter feed at the bottom of the page and links to other related blogs and sites.Another blog I found that was related to Wegmans, though not in a positive way, was called "Wegmans Cruelty." This blog highlights animal cruelty associated with the farms that provide eggs to Wegmans. This blog allowed for comments as well, however it did not seem to be actively updated or have many comments on it.

Four Seasons Hotels are diverse within the company as well as outside where they have locations. They employees and guests are from all over the world and welcome and respect everyone equally. "Our languages, religious beliefs, cultures and traditions are varied and may not be familiar to each of us. Our goal is that each person will feel respected and welcomed, and will sense our wish to understand and value each other’s differences." Four Seasons-Diversity

Four Seasons Hotels are serious about respecting customs and traditions of their employees and guest. "We always endeavor to select and retain the best-qualified individuals based upon job-related qualifications and regardless of any protected group status under the law."

Four Season is successful as a luxury hotel because of the exceptional personal customer service. they adhere to standards. Four Seasons Hotels in different countries adapt to local customs and strive to blend with the environment they are in. Four Seasons is successful across the globe because of their policy and belief in diversity.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Dunkin’ Donuts does not have a blog on their website, however they do dedicate a tab on their facebook page for fans to discuss pretty much whatever they want about Dunkin’ Donuts. There is also a website—not run by anyone affiliated with the company—called Dunkin Donuts Talk, however it appears to have not been posted on since January 2010. It looks like the site used to be run by several authors who just loved Dunkin Donuts products and wanted to share their love by discussing it online, but has not been written in for some time. Dunkin does however promote the sharing of their brand through your own blog. The link "http://www.dunkinathome.com/post-to-blog.aspx" takes you html code that once inserted into your own blog, will appear as essentially a little ad, showing your love for Dunkin. I think this is a really interesting idea and is also great for developing and having consumers show brand loyalty on the web. Hill Holliday, Dunkin’s ad agency has their own blog and occasionally blogs about Dunkin’ Donuts, but not exclusively. On the contrary, someone has also created an “I Hate Dunkin’ Donuts” page on facebook in order to vent their dislikes. This page has 239 fans; the Dunkin Donuts fan page has 2,041,659.

This is just a TED blog I came across today that reminded me of the Coca-Cola Corporation video viewed earlier in today's class. Speaker Melinda French Gates gives advice to nonprofits urging them to take a cue from Coca-Cola and it's global finesse.

Friday, October 8, 2010

As I'm sure we all know, American Express is a credit card company - their target is anyone who can afford to build credit, and pay off any amount of possible debt incurred. As part of their internal communications, the company does a great job promoting diversity: they hire among all races, both sexes, and all age groups. Recently, American Express has also been expanding where they do business into other countries. By creating campaigns and awareness in these new markets, the company hopes to create a more diverse customer database.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Johnson and Johnson does a good job with promoting diversity internally and externally. Internally Johnson and Johnson promote diversity in the workforce with not discriminating against any culture for hiring purposes. Furthermore, externally Johnson and Johnson show diversity, through the products and awareness of what other cultures want and need. Johnson and Johnson also offers a wide variety of programs and activities to support diversity. This is shown through the Majorie Geller, Vice President of Recruiting says, ““Our commitment to diversity has a powerful impact on our recruitment and our talent-development processes, as well as the products we offer to customers. We make a tremendous effort to recruit a diverse work force, both in the United States and around the world, and we try very hard to assure that our diverse culture translates into value for our customers, our employees, our communities and our stockholders. Our credo reminds us that this is what it’s all about.” (http://www.nytimes.com/marketing/jobmarket/diversity/jandj.html)

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Starbucks has a company blog called the "Shared Values Blog." This blog can be found on the company’s website. The con to this blog is that there are only two entries, both which date back to April 2010. However, also on their website, are blog entries which are posted by associates of Starbucks. The blog entries can be seen on the left hand side of the Starbucks website, and you can click on the entry to read the whole thing. The most recent posting is from October 5, 2010. The blog topic is called “Perfect Your Starbucks VIA® Flavored Coffee Experience” and is written by an associate product manager. There is also another blog called Starbucks Gossip Blog (http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/) This blog has no ties to the Starbucks brand. The blog has entries including what’s new, product wise, as well as other Starbucks related entries. What’s great about this blog is that there are comments left on each entry, which encourages other bloggers to add their 2 cents to the topic being discussed. The latest blog entry topic is called “What's the early reaction to the new flavored VIA coffees?”

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

The blogs I found that talked about Four Seasons Hotels were travel blogs. There was one in particular that I liked, it was called 'Loyalty Traveler'. The blog talked about special promotions and accommodation in certain Four Seasons Hotels around the world. Another blog I found interesting was a National Geographic blog called "Intelligent Travel". The blog was done in a Q&A format between the blogger and CEO, Isadore Sharp. Various topics were covered including the current economy and hot it has affected the hotel, their business philosophy and the company it self. If you are interested in this blog, you can visit the blog at Intelligent Travel

There were also a few review based blogs, where customers write their thoughts and opinions. I found it interesting because you can find a review on whichever hotel you are planning on staying at.

On the Starbucks website I found a company blog called the "Shared Values Blog." I was impressed to find a blog on the site that employees of the company can write on. Then, I did some more research by looking at the blog itself. I was extremely disappointed to find that there was only one entry written by a group marketing manager promoting Starbucks, Shared Planet. The entry was posted back in April of 2010, and has no comments.

However, there is another Starbucks blog that is not affiliated with the company that is quite developed and has a lot of followers. The blog is called "Starbucks Gossip: Monitoring America's Favorite Drug Dealer." There are regular postings about what is going on with the company that are commented on regularly. In addition to regular Starbucks "gossip" about new products and what is going on with the company, the blogger will write posts directly relating to Starbucks employees for them to comment on.

Johnson & Johnson's blog is called "JNJ BTW" which stands for Johnson & Johnson By the Way. It provides links to the various social networks that Johnson & Johnson is involved with (ex. Twitter, YouTube, Facebook). It's a blog for employees to learn about what's going on in the company as well as upcoming events and a chance for Johnson and Johnson to correct any mistakes as well as update press releases. It's a site that's easy to navigate and pretty user friendly. Even though I don't work for Johnson and Johnson the stories were pretty interesting.

The National Football League is a trailblazer when its comes to fan participation. Its website in its entirety is really just one big community for fans, writers, onlookers, and contributors. The NFL equipped every aspect of the website with the accessibility for fans to contribute their own opinions and organically build their own conversations. Every article and every highlight reel gives viewers the ability to provide their own thoughts and opinions in a completely interactive arena. These posts, however, are closely monitored. The NFL is a prestigious organization with a tendency to abide by a high standard of morality, so if any posts contain profanity or lude language the comment will be removed and the user banned from the site.

There are also many aspects of the site that are designed specifically for fans alone to discuss the topics of their choosing. The site provides fans with fantasy football forums, polls, and a team-by-team blog that they refer to as "Fan Voice". The site also hosts weekly web-chats with all of their writers and gives fans the ability to ask them questions and suggest content. Finally, the site also provides and open forum to discuss the business aspects of the league and provides timely and sufficient customer service to any queries. Even the commisioner himself has weekly fan conversations through the site.

Monday, October 4, 2010

The American Express Corporation does not have a blog for the general public from their company. They have an “Open Forum” for business owners that work with American Express cards, but it is only accessible for those business owners. When searching for blogs about American Express, I did find ameXsuX.com, but the posts were outdated. Furthermore, you can find personal blogs on them but the credibility of these posts has to be questioned. I was very surprised that they did not have a blog. In my opinion, they should create one to reach the general public because personal cardholders should have a voice too.

Because Hearst Corporation is such a big company with many components, including magazines, digital, entertainment, broadcasting, real estate, newspapers, etc., I decided to focus on one of those areas (my favorite of them all), Hearst Magazines. Hearst Magazines (or Hearst Publications) gets frequent publicity more through trades than blogs. MediaBistro.com's FishbowlNY frequently "blogs" about Hearst's publications, but in more of a news format, meaning they try to provide more facts, than opinions.

One particular blog I found truly focused on one of their magazines, Seventeen. The blog titled The Seventeen Magazine Project was based on an 18 year old girl who planned on following "the gospel" that is Seventeen. She took one of the issues, and blogged every day, focusing on one area of the magazine. This was great for Seventeen because their name was getting put in the center of this girl's attention for the world to see. The girl did not fully agree with everything the magazine said, so she seemed very genuine, and Seventeen came out on top when the writer realized that she wanted to further her studies with her new blog, Teenagerie.com, which was created to be "1. a collective set of media representations defining society's understanding of the exotic condition known as adolescence 2: a blog meant to analyze, deconstruct, and promote discussion centered around these representations."

When searching for a Vera Bradley company blog, I was unable to find anything within an immediate internet search. The only blogs that exist are areas where people are buying and selling Vera Bradley products or posting their own opinions and reviews about new Vera Bradley products that may have been released. Examples of these blogs include Buy That Purse and Discount Fabric Handbags. With access to Vera Bradley’s Intranet site as an employee for the company, I was able to search within there to see if there was a company blog. On the main page, titled “The Thread,” there are company announcements where employees can view recent news about Vera Bradley as a whole, and then navigate to a specific store’s Intranet site where store specific news can be posted. However there is still no “blog” type places where people can blog about their employment or company experiences.

Coca-Cola Conversations is the official Coca-Cola blog. On it you can find information on their role in history or collectible Coke memorabilia or even videos about the company. They encourage a two-way dialogue between consumers and their employees. On the blog, they clearly state that they review all comments before they go live in order to avoid inappropriate comments and keep the conversations related to the subject of the blog but do not represent the opinions of the company. I feel like this is an effective way to maintain a healthy conversation about topics related to the Coca-Cola Company and the products they offer.

Disney, being a huge brand and corporation, has two relevant blogs that can be considered. One of the two is their Disney Parks Blog, which discusses all things relating to Disney World, Disney Land, etc. This blog I feel serves more as another information source for customers and Disney fans to use to locate their parks, learn updates, and news about the parks. In a lot of ways this blog functions as another website rather than a blog as I don't see any customer blog interaction.

The other blog by Disney is The Disney Blog which seems to be their corporate blog (though never directly referred to as so). Here Disney includes information about ABC Disney, Disney Parks, Disney CEO etc. This actually seems like a blog and functions as so. It's less like a website and more like what a blog is expected to be.

The only blog that I was able to find that Canon runs is their Canon Cinema Caravan: Blog. They don’t seem to have a general blog for communicating with their customers.What the Canon Cinema Caravan: Blog does is it documents the Canon Cinema Caravan, which, according to their website,“is a month-long showcase of EOS HD learning resources”.The blog contains a diary of the things that have gone on during the tour; a contest to create a commercial around a Canon product, which is voted on by customers; tutorials on Canon products; and a list of the equipment they use.

I think they use this blog to reach out to the people, customers and people who don’t use their products, who are interested in photography, but might not be able to come to the tour.I think it’s an effective blog because it is casual and fun, which makes it feel less like a corporation talking and more like it’s coming from people who are just interested in photography.Also, the contest and user voting aspects are a great way to get people involved and to use their creativity, while feeling like they are a part of Canon Inc.

Has anyone chosen to read Outliers? I bought the book and started reading. It is really interesting and I am enjoying it. Maybe we can start a discussion about the book on the blog. Just a suggestion! Happy Reading!

Macy's Inc is involved with an online site called "Business Exchange," which is a site that gives access to the most relevant content for brand name businesses. It is filtered by business professionals that connect you to different blogs, news and information about a certain business.

If I wanted to look up different blogs that mention Macy's or that is running Macy's promotions on their site- "Business Exchange" would find it. Since there are a lot of subsidiaries to the Macy's brand; it seems easier for them to filter out where they are being mentioned on the internet.

I personally think that this is not a great move on Macy's part. They need to put a little more time and effort into their stores. Each Macy's store should have a blog within their store division; that way customers know what is going on within their own community. The "Business Exchange" site feels very impersonal and not worth the time.

Macy's Inc really needs to give their website a make over and get involved with social media. They're a old company that needs to get hip with what is going on in the world of technology today.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Goldman Sachs’s prominence and notoriety make it a target forfinancial blogs. For this assignment’s sake, I will focus on twohighly credible blogs: The Business Insider and theNew York Times’DealBook. Recently, both blogs have had Goldman’s fraud suit, internaloperations, and moves to comply with newfinancial regulationon their radars.

The DealBook primarily focuses onmergers and acquisitions. Itsreporters host impressive resumes (including a former Sherman andSterling mergers and acquisitions attorney), and as it is featured intheNew York Times’ businesssection, it has high reach and impact.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Surprisingly enough, American Express doesn't have any corporate blogs, though they do have a section on their website called "Open Forum." This section is mainlyfor small businesses who are AmEx members, are it requires a login identification and password to access. Other than this, there had been a blog called "AmExSucks," but it has not been used since September 2008. There are plenty of blogs with articles about American Express about the service it provides, but none completely dedicated to the company in a fashion either positive or negative. The vast majority of the articles I did read through, however, are consumers sharing their distaste with the company; on the other hand, another percentage of blog entries are written about American Express and its new products, services, or other areas of the business in a more interested manner.

The corporation Johnson and Johnson recently created a blog for their clients in 2007. This called JNJ BTW, which stands for Johnson and Johnson By The Way. This blog is dedicated to the 120,000 employees at Johnson and Johnson. The blog was created and is currently managed by Johnson and Johnson’s media relations’ position, Marc Monseau. This blog allows employees to blog about what the company is doing, how they are doing it and also comment about the industry they are in. I personally felt that finding this blog was difficult and it is not clearly mentioned on the Johnson and Johnson corporate website. Furthermore, since 2007 there has only been 96 blogs. However, the blogs are consistent and honest and they mainly focus on the pharmaceutical industry. Besides for this corporate blog run by Johnson and Johnson I could not find anything else that was run by the corporation or that gave employees more of a voice. I wanted to read about what the employee’s thought of the latest scandal and what the employees thought about working at the company.

I also followed Johnson and Johnson on Twitter for both JNJ Stories and JNJ Comm. These two twitter accounts allowed me to see the external feelings about the company.I believe that Johnson and Johnson need to make more of an opportunity for their employees to be heard. There were other blogs about Johnson and Johnson like pharmamkting.blogspot.com and pharmalot.com.In regards to just Johnson and Johnson having their own blogs for the public to see I could only find one. This was extremely disappointing because the blogs on JNJBTW were not effective. They were not effective because I wanted less of a journalist view of what was going on and more of “tweets” that allowed me to see how people actually felt and things that were being done internally.